Stardust
by Lou P.F
Summary: Every single soul, every living creature – they were all cut from stars. The Guardian walks among them, carving souls from their core– sometimes only one, sometimes two, sometimes more. A star dies, and souls are born. Cat is five years old and something is missing. There's a piece of her, gone, an empty hole where there should be something. She thinks it's normal. (Soulmate AU)


Every single person was once a star.

Every single soul, every living creature – they were all cut from stars. The Guardian walks among them, these glowing sparks and dots, carefully picking out the ones who are ready to be given life. He carves souls from them – sometimes only one, sometimes two, sometimes more. A star dies, and souls are born.

Souls of the same star are perfect for each other. In every way, shape or form, no matter where they go, no matter what they do, they will never be complete without the other. They were created together, are several sides of the same coin, and even if they can't remember that, some part of them will always know.

The souls are sent off to live lives all throughout the world. As family, as friends, as lovers, as pets. And they always find each other, no matter where they end up – for that is the power of the purest form of love.

The process might be boring, at times, and then they seek out the Guardian to ask for a challenge. A _test_, a way to see how fast and well they truly can find each other.

And now the three of them stand, so close they are almost one, the essence that is _them _staring up into gentle eyes.

"A test, you say?" the Guardian asks, lowering himself down to be on their level. There are galaxies in his eyes, stars brushed across his antlers, planets in his fur. "What kind are we talking about?"

"The hardest you have," they say.

"The ultimate challenge," another adds.

The Guardian leans back, tilting his head to give them a contemplative look. "You will not be in the same universe," he warns. "And will not recall this occasion, nor your birth."

"We will find each other," they say.

They nod. "We always have."

This, apparently, is the answer the Guardian wanted, for he hums and nods. "Very well. Say your goodbyes."

"Farewell," they say. "Survive long for me."

They laugh. "And the same to you. Live well."

"As though I can decide," they say, and they smile.

"Nonetheless." They smile back, then turns to the Guardian, moving away from them, from each other, until they are three clear separates and not one blur. "We are ready."

The Guardian inclines his head and does not raise it. "Safe travels," he says, and on his voice is the distant heartbeat of a different world.

Something is missing. Cat is five years old and something is missing. There's a piece of her, gone, an empty hole where there should be _something_. No one mentions anything like it, but no one mentions anything _different, _either, and so she bottles it up and pushes it down.

She thinks it's normal.

Cirrus is torn from his planet when he's eight days old, is torn from his family, from his budding life, and when he has nightmares about black holes at four, he doesn't think it's anything out of the ordinary.

The ache grows worse as she grows older. She's ten, eleven, twelve, watching her classmates and friends finding partners, finding best friends – and when she's thirteen her older friend travels across half the world to meet their boyfriend. Cat watches, and she isn't _jealous_, not really, but – the hole, the ache, it thuds and hurts and _screams _inside of her.

Then she's fourteen, and she's being teased for not having a boyfriend – or a girlfriend, for that matter, an exasperated friend tells her. _You're pretty_, they say, sounding confused, _what's holding you back_?

Cat opens her mouth, wants to reply, and shuts it again.

How can she explain that the thought of tying herself to someone feels like ripping her own heart out?

When he's twelve he changes his name to Megamind. It's a play on the bullies – on their harsh calls of _mega head, _or _giga head_, and painful remarks about his skin.

(if he embraces it and makes it part of him maybe they'll _stop _maybe _he'll _stop, maybe _maybe __**maybe**_)

His name was never written down anywhere and so there's nothing he needs to _change_. No official papers, no lawyers or courts or meetings, only a small whisper to Minion and it's done. Never had he told anyone, never had anyone known, and now no one ever shall.

But there's something in his heart that stays the same. Some deep part of him is locked down and unable to change. He knows – he _knows_ – he'll always be Cirrus, that's never going to change. His true name, the one his parents gave him, the one only one person on this wreck of a planet knows… it's always going to be his.

His name is Megamind. That's what they call him, so that's what he's going to be.

(and through it all – he never mentions it, not to anyone, but there's this hollow feeling in his chest – it eases, somewhat, in Minion's presence, but never enough, never _enough_, and his sleep is restless and scattered with stars and black holes.)

Cat is in class one moment, and they're watching a video about space –

there's a glint, a shimmer, and in a rush she's floating, complete, and there are stars around her and she's _complete_, the ache in her chest gone, stars and darkness and _safety _all around her. A soft laugh, a gentle hand, the glimmer of too huge antlers, and –

someone touches her arm and she falls out of her chair, the floor cold and hard.

She lies there, staring up at the roof, and the spots dancing before her eyes has nothing to do with her fall.

(she'd been _complete _–)

(and she aches and aches and aches and)

Megamind – Cirrus – _Megamind _runs away from prison for the first time, having found a perfect place to settle down, and he brings Minion and goes there and tries his best to live. At the odd hours of night, he jumps out of bed and beats metal with metal, producing strange creations – robots and machines and _guns_.

(his heart is empty his body is empty and there's nothing within him and he needs to _fill _it)

He's seventeen when he builds the first brainbot. "Purely out of necessity," he tells Minion, who hovers worriedly over his shoulder. "To cover more ground," he assures Minion, and doesn't explain why he made it sentient, why he made it _feel_.

(and if the brainbot, and every single brainbot after that, fills the hole – if only for a moment, if only for a day, if only until it adjusts and grows and –)

(he doesn't mention that.)

Cat delves into space. Maybe, she thinks, maybe it's just that this is her love. Maybe this is what she's been looking for, maybe this is what will complete her, maybe _this _is **_her_**.

Books and articles and tv-shows and drawings and art and theories and all it does to her is make her feel _nostalgic. _It makes her _long_, and more than once she finds herself brushing knuckles across a page, across a screen, biting her cheek against the infected ache within her.

(and sometimes when she dreams, when she dreams of this place in the stars, where she is complete, where she is _perfect_)

(when she wakes up there's always this short moment where everything feels _wrong_)

(it's like she must teach herself to walk all over again every single time she _blinks_)

Sometimes there are other dreams as well. Of faces and hands and butterfly kisses, of parental and familial touches and more than that, of eyes and smirks and a happy laughter. Sometimes she sees a face on the street and spins around, an echo of _completion _in her chest, but the eyes are wrong or the nose is off or the hair is strange and the echo fades.

She's nineteen, she's lost, and she needs, she _needs_.

Megamind – _Cirrus _– **_Megamind _**is fretting over his brainbots. Whizzer had gotten in quite the fight the other day, and his claws are unhinged as a result. Megamind has to fix it, but Whizzer's whirring around and complaining in his own special way, refusing to cooperate.

"Hey – hey, wait now – " Megamind says, jumping over the couch to go after him. There's amusement in his voice and a smile on his face – it's just the claw, not the glass casing, so he isn't too worried. It's nothing fatal, and if it had been, Whizzer would be asking to be fixed. Still, he'd like to readjust it before it can develop into something worse. "Whizzer! Wait!" He laughs, grasping after the unruly bot.

He lets out a row of guffawing chuckles, ducking from Megamind's grasp with a playful _bowg_.

"Angel, please!" Megamind calls, and in a flash he's chasing a young girl wearing a nightgown around a room, laughter in his throat and hands reached after her. "Angel!" he begs, jumping over a box with wooden blocks to follow after the giggling girl. "Angel, come on, it's bed time!"

"No!" the girl cries, in-between bouts of giggles, and her hair floats around her head like a cloud. "No, da, I want to play!"

And Megamind stands stock still in his workspace, wrench clattering to the floor, the chill of the room overwhelming.

He raises a hand to his chest. The ever-present ache twinges.

His heart beats.

"Sir?" says Minion, creeping closer, eyes worried, expression worried, everything worried.

Megamind breathes.

(the ache eases, loosens, Minion's presence soothing as always –)

(painful, still, but _better._)

"I'm fine," he lies.

(he **_never_**_**is**_)

Whizzer hovers over, presenting his damaged claw without comment.

Megamind picks up the wrench again, forcing a wobbly smile onto his face. "Well," he says. "Let's see about that claw, then?"

She tries dating people. Mostly because she sees the way people look at each other, the way they look at another person with utter trust and devotion, love and understanding and such obvious _belonging._ She wants that, _needs _it, but every person feels wrong, and none ever work out, no matter what she tries.

(she looks up at the stars and they're so _far away_, and she isn't sure who _they _are)

She's twenty-two and she looks down at her own hands and decides that enough is enough.

The flashes and experiences continue on like that – a word, a smell, a color, a sound – they set him off and make him remember things that never happened or have yet to exist. He's a child, he's an adult, he's in love, he's _loved_, he's warm and safe and home and trusted and _good_ and –

Cat takes to the library first, picking up books on love and soulmates and spirituality. The librarian who checks her out gives her a weird look, but when she offers a glare that could melt stone they hurriedly look away.

Several hours are spent scourging the books. And there's nothing.

Well, _almost _nothing – a small paragraph here, a reference there, a mention or call or theory. Most of it is about spirituality, and while it can't be directly tied to her longing for _something_, for_**someone**_, it can still be applied to her in some way. There's a mention of soulmates being unable to find each other and that it causes them great pain, but not much more than that.

Cat closes the book in frustration and takes to the internet.

"Minion?" Megamind says, from his place in his too-big bed, staring up at the roof he'd plastered full of glow-in-the-dark stars one particularly nasty night.

Minion looks up from the sewing machine in the corner. "Sir?"

Megamind thinks of the ache in his ribs, the longing in his bones, the hope that never quite dies. He thinks of the want, of the hatred, of the desperation.

He thinks of the black hole constantly on his mind.

"Do you ever miss home?" he asks.

It isn't what he wanted to say.

Minion stops completely. "Uh, well, sir," he says, "I – don't have the same memory as you, but – " He hesitates. "Sir, my home is here with you. It's all I've ever known. But from your stories – what little we know – " Here he cuts himself off, and Megamind knows him well enough to tell that he struggles.

"That's enough, Minion," he whispers. "I understand."

He turns onto his side, curling against himself, folding into a tight little ball.

(he will _never _feel at home here.)

There is more information on the web, but still not quite enough. Cat clicks and reads and reads and clicks, takes notes in a little notepad she keeps on her at all times. There are a few accounts and stories of people who never feel at ease, of people who feel _wrong_, of people who feel they are from a different world.

Cat is all of them, but not like they say, and never in the same way.

She discovers witchcraft, and it calls out to her in that peculiar way some things do, but it has nothing to do with her ache nor her emptiness nor the strange flashes and dreams. So she continues on, searching, scourging, _looking_.

A page talks about _shared dreams_, and it's the only thing she's really felt connected to, in that sense. And so, she brews that cup of tea, and buys that herb, and makes that oil, and does that little ritual, and tries that type of meditation.

And to her great relief and joy it _works_.

They're discovered by the local police and have to run for their lives. It's Megamind and Minion and twelve brainbots bolting with whatever they're able to carry. The place had been perfect, just the right size, in a great spot when compared to the rest of the city… they'd even made the air-condition work after some grumbles and tinkering.

"Well," says Megamind, his hands on his hips as he stares at the abandoned warehouse, Minion carrying a heap of clothing so tall he can barely see. "It was time to move upwards in the system anyway!"

It's a good thing he's always found fun in creative processes.

(he hopes trying to make a home count as a creative process)

The dreams aren't – quite _dreams_. In the beginning there are no scenes, nothing specific, only short flashes and impressions and feelings that linger. Softness, warmth, belonging – blue and purple and something cool to the touch. Home and safe and the same feeling she's always felt about space, about belonging. Cat wonders where her soulmate is, what they might be experiencing, if they're looking for her.

Sometimes in the middle of the day she puts her chin in her hands and wishes for sleep – not to rest, like she usually does, but for the dreams. And even then, less for the dreams and more for the lingering sensation of _home_.

Megamind's new place takes form slowly but surely. He builds a few more brainbots, Minion sews a few more capes and outfits, and with the help of his growing army of bots he starts painting the walls. They're black and gray – he prefers the dim calm that settles over a room when the walls are dark colors.

He gets a smaller bed, but comfier, and Minion settles into the room across the hallway. And then, eventually, even his mind calms. His dreams turn from black holes to patience and warmth – no pictures, no scenes, only emotions and senses and half-finished thoughts squashed in between heartbeats.

When he wakes he's calm. He's collected. Ready to start the day.

(and he doesn't notice it, at first, but moving has soothed his aches.)

(well. at least he _thinks _it's the moving.)

But, however comforting the dreams are, it's not what Cat wants. She set out to find her soulmate, or soulmates, or whatever, really. She needs to know _who it is _that makes her feel like this – who it is she'd follow to the depths of hell. She needs to know why they're so familiar, why these flashbacks that aren't quite flashbacks keep turning up.

So she looks into lucid dreaming. Records her dreams, starts reading up on dream interpretations. Hangs up posters and looks at courses and reads books, going to bed early and waking even earlier just to find sleep.

Her dreams are too vague, still, to really get a grasp around – but finally, at last, they start to shape forms.

There's a man, and green eyes, and a blue sky, and a wonderful, _beautiful _laugh. Blue hands against metal bolts, black silk and dolled up eyes, a theatrically evil laugh.

Cat wakes up and stares at her ceiling.

His presence in her dreams is familiar – it carries the echo of stars, the throb of a heart, the whisper of a shared past.

And he definitely had blue hands.

"Who _are _you?" she asks, and the silence in her room gives no answer.

When the strange girl starts showing up in his dreams, Megamind isn't quite sure what to do. She comes out of the heavy, homely haze like some sort of angel – with her pretty voice and her joyous laugh, her quiet grumbling over something that appears to be work-related, the way her hair tumbles down her back, her eyes ablaze with stars.

He shrugs it off. It's probably just his imagination again – a particularly intense flashback that keeps coming back, most likely. He's learned to live with them, accepted that they come every now and then and found that the best course of action is to ignore and move around them. But now they're becoming… disruptive. Distracting. He finds his thoughts wandering to those eyes, to that smile, to that sarcastic remark more and more often. His hands still on his work, his voice halts mid-sentence, eyes flickering to things that aren't there.

Minion notices. Of course he does. But he says nothing, because that's the way he is. He changes in small ways, talks more, does more, buys more donuts. Megamind rarely has to ask for anything nowadays – it's all done as soon as he can think of it.

Megamind supposes it's because he's worried for him. And perhaps he should be worried about himself, as well, but – well, he isn't. How can he be worried, when the outcome is so decidedly positive?

And finally, Cat's dreams become solid enough for her to start manipulating them. She twists, until the man she keeps seeing is standing beneath the stars, turns, until they're on a hill, morphs and moves and keeps spinning things around to see him more clearly. At first it doesn't seem like he notices his surroundings – he only sits there, or stands, staring at the sky or the hill. Cat is content to watch him, at first – at the way the stars play across his neck, the slope of his shoulders, the shades and colors of his skin.

Her content-ness doesn't last forever, though, and during the fourth dream Cat steps forward and touches a hand to his shoulder –

and he turns, eyes meeting hers, and he _sees_.

It takes some time, but the hazy dream landscape slowly takes form into a hill, or a cliff of some sort – and the stars are spread across the sky, too close to be Earth, too far away to be his planet. He admires them, for some time, and while they _are _stars and this _is _space it doesn't bring on that twisted echo of pain he's always felt at the thought of planets and moons and light-sucking holes.

He wonders where the flashes went, where the woman he saw has gone, if she truly was only a figment of his imagination. Has he been to this place before, he ponders, and if not why does he remember it so clearly? Why – oh, _why _– does it feel so familiar?

And then there's a hand on his shoulder.

Their eyes meet and Cat –

Megamind –

breathes, yet can't breathe, memories flooding on and stopping at the same time, heart –

hesitating –

then ploughing on, the blood in her veins –

in his veins –

turning to fire, to ice, to molten lava, and –

he opens his mouth –

he opens his mouth –

and –

**_speaks._**

The next morning Megamind takes a paintbrush to the black walls. When he leaves the stars are painted on them, the heavens, the hill, and _her_.

She doesn't remember it all when she wakes up.

"My name is – Megamind," he'd said.

(and he'd hesitated, had stopped, a flicker of something across his features, and Cat wonders what his real name is.)

He told her he liked the stars, asked where they were. When she'd replied that she didn't know, he only hummed and nodded. "Perhaps we'll figure it out," he'd said, and Cat had taken his hand.

Now she's awake, sitting bolt upright in her bed and staring at her wall.

She has to find him. How hard can it be? He's a blue alien man – things like that aren't exactly _common_, right?

Forty-seven minutes later she tips her head back and downs the rest of her by-now cold coffee. As it turns out, it's not only uncommon, it _doesn't happen at all_. There's nothing on him. _Nothing_. It's as though he's never existed. But the clothes he'd worn were modern enough – he can't have existed so far back in time that he's been forgotten. But how can she dream of someone who is yet to be?

She can't.

Has all her research been for naught? Is he not her soulmate, but only – well, a figment of her imagination? Truly?

But the feeling of – completion, of safety – it had been _there_.

It's _him_.

Megamind goes to Minion the next day. "Minion," he says, "what do you know of souls?"

And Minion gives him one of the looks that says he knows exactly what's going on. Megamind smiles sheepishly and offers an almost-shrug. "Why didn't you say anything, sir?" Minion asks. "I would have done something."

"Like what?" Megamind says, crossing his arms with a raised eyebrow. He can't quite help his small smile, though. "Celebrated?"

"Yes," Minion says. "Who are they?"

"I… don't know," Megamind admits. "I didn't get to ask her name."

Minion hums, turning back to the frying pan with a pleased smile. "It will come in time, sir. Just you wait and see!"

Cat stretches across the couch, yawning as she pushes herself up. She's just finished watching the movie Paul, the bowls with chips and fruit pastilles empty on the table before her. Reaching after the remote she turns off the DVD player, getting ready to clear out the bowls and go to bed.

The screen goes black for half a moment, then it jumps over to the channel she'd been watching before turning on the movie.

She's half-way into the kitchen when her brain catches up to her ears. " – genuinely scared right now! Oh, I hope no one's seeing this!"

The bowls clatter to the floor.

Cat spins, staring at the screen.

And it's _him. _A bit cartoonish, admittedly, but adorable and green eyed and _blue_.

"Megamind," she whispers, and she's back in the couch before she's consciously aware of it herself.

The next night Megamind is grabbed by the shoulders almost before he can fall asleep, a frantic _her _in his arms, speaking a hundred miles per second. "Wait, wait," he begs, brushing a hand through her hair, gently trying to pry her away to stare into her eyes. "Could you repeat that?"

"You didn't tell me you're a _super villain_," she says, and Megamind's heart freezes. Then she hesitates, tilting her head to look at the stars above them, clear as ever. "…_were _a supervillain?"

He swallows, and he doesn't want to lie, but it's such a deep ingrained part of him that the words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them. "Why do you think that?"

She looks down at him, and their gazes lock –

(and she's _everything everything everything_)

He barely notices when their fingers intertwine.

"We are from different universes," she says, and she says it so bluntly that he can't help but believe her. "You're a fictional character."

Megamind blinks. "I'm a what?"

Her hands tighten around his, and she tugs him closer, closer, and he can barely breathe, he hasn't felt this whole since – since –

"A fictional character," she whispers, "you are – a supervillain in Metrocity but you turn good – and are welcomed with open arms – " She breaks off, tilts her head only slightly, and they're _so close_. "And Deus, you look so much better in person!"

It startles a chuckle out of him. "You think I look good?"

"Are you kidding me? You're the most attractive man I've ever met." She laughs, too, quiet and dark. She tucks her head under his chin and brings their joined hands to his chest, pressing the back of her hand against his shirt. "Can't you feel it?" she whispers. "This – thing between us…"

Perhaps she can feel his heart quiver. There's something heavy in the air between them, something shuddering in apprehension. "I do," he replies, and he takes his other hand, his free hand, looping it around her back and holding her tight, tight, close. "Say, fair maiden, would you share your name with me?"

She laughs, her nose brushing against his throat. "I'm Cat," she says. "And I'm no one special."

Megamind speaks almost before he can stop himself, but something tells him that if she's here, she must _know_. "Well, my dear Cat," he says, "it so happens that you are the soulmate of Megamind, incredibly handsome criminal genius and master of all villainy – wouldn't really call that 'no one special'!"

"Oh! So you do use that!" Cat exclaims. "You say that in the movie, too!" Somehow she manages to snuggle closer. "I'm – I can't believe I finally _found _you."

She'd been _looking _for him.

"I've never been good at searching," Megamind says, and he trails a hand through her hair, carding his fingers through soft strands. "But sensing this… I'm realizing what I've been looking for my entire life." He shifts, nuzzling the top of her head. "Thank you for finding me."

"You've been looking?" Cat asks. Her voice trembles, and Megamind has never been good with emotions, but there's awe in there, and wonder, and unbelievable love.

"My darling," he says, and again the words slip past his walls. Perhaps they are an echo from another time – perhaps their souls recognize each other. Everyone has always been a stranger to him – but Cat, in all the lives he's known her, has never been. Never. "My soul has looked for yours in every face I've ever seen," he says, and Cat shivers in his arms. "But my heart could never love another." He doesn't quite give her time to reply, not properly anyway, for he bends and whispers his name in her ear.

_Cirrus_.

Cat wakes up and the name rings in her ears, whispers, calls, and she doesn't bother to fight the smile blooming on her face.

_Cirrus_.

It's beautiful.

She watches the movie again that day, from the beginning this time, and if she hadn't been convinced Megamind – Cirrus – is her soulmate, she would have known by now. The animated version holds nothing on the real deal, but it's still wonderful and amazing and –

Cat runs a hand through her hair with a shuddery smile. She doesn't even care to be embarrassed by acting like a lovesick teen.

Nighttime and sleep cannot come fast enough.

The next time they meet Megamind asks Cat about her universe. He's curious, since she made it obvious they're not from the same.

Turns out they're very similar. The only major difference, it seems, is that aliens are 'common' in Megamind's universe. In Cat's, many people don't even believe such a thing as aliens exist. Megamind can't quite wrap his mind around it, but he supposes it makes sense.

They talk about the strangest of things. Cat's job, at first, and then moving over to olden times. Megamind is overjoyed to find out she has similar interests to his. History is a common theme in their conversations, no matter what they originally started discussing – it always comes back to that in one way or another.

(it seems, Megamind will later ponder, that they both had sought an escape from reality in the fables of times long passed.)

Whenever the topic goes towards Megamind's work, however, he quickly and smoothly turns the subject over to something else. He doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to discuss it, isn't even quite sure what to do with himself.

It's not like he _doesn't _want to be Bad – he just… he just –

(wants to be _loved_.)

(and now that he is, he's not sure what to _do _with it.)

It's during one of their usual talks that Cat speaks openly about it for the first time. "Cirrus," she says, her shoulder warm against his, fingers tangled between them –

(and his name, his name on her lips, that's _him_)

"Yes, _mia cara_?"

"You aren't evil," she says, and Megamind's world freezes. "You know that, right?" He doesn't have to say anything. Cat knows him like she knows herself. "Love, you're not a bad person. You've never been."

And he wants her to be right. He _needs _her to be right. "But – "

"No buts," Cat interrupts. She sits up and tugs him with her, before leaning into a gentle peck on his lips. "You are the most wonderful person I've _ever _had the pleasure of meeting."

Megamind tightens his hold on her hand. "Yes, well," he says, "judging by the stories you have told of your home, the bar isn't very high."

"Shut up," Cat says, her eyes hard. "I have _never _known someone better than you. _Never_. In all my lives, in all the things I've seen…" She leans in again, lips soft and breath hot and she's so unbelievably _real_. "You can be a hero. You _are _a hero." Tilting her head, she presses her forehead against his. "Cirrus, I _love _you. So much."

(it's the first time she's said it it's the first time he's heard it and)

(he)

(_breaks_)

He wants to speak, to tell her there's nothing he wants more than be good for her, that there's nothing he wants more than to spend his life with her, but –

She meets his gaze and it's stronger than the first time, stronger than the second, stronger than all of them combined.

(_everything everything she's __**everything**_)

"I can see our forever in your eyes," Cat whispers, and Megamind is frailer than he's ever been – if she breathes too harshly, now, he might break and shatter and disappear on the breeze. "I can feel it in my _bones_. I've loved you before and I'll love you again – this is our infinity, Cirrus – this is _us_." She speaks with the voice of an oracle, with the voice of someone who knows they are right and will forever be. The hand she puts to his chest is warm and safe and _home_. "You. Are. _Good._"

Megamind draws a trembling breath. "For you, my love, I will be anything."

Cat smiles, a small shaky thing, and Megamind covers her hand with his. "You aren't doing this because of me," she says. "You can't change your core."

(it slips into place everything slips into place and he's _whole _and she's **_right._**)

Megamind – _Cirrus _– smiles back. "Nor do I wish to."

Cirrus tells her a week later he's dropped the 'villain' career. He doesn't say anything, and Cat doesn't question him, but she can see the light in his eyes has grown stronger.

She doesn't say 'told you so', but Cirrus can surely read it on her, for he gives her a dry look and says, "Oh, yes, you are a genius" in that teasing, wry voice of his.

The world makes sense when he's there. She hopes he knows.

(judging by the way he smiles when she looks at him the feeling is mutual.)

A few days later Cirrus isn't alone when Cat arrives. Minion is with him, a nervous smile on his face and hand poised to wave. Cat doesn't give him time for that, instead throwing herself at him with a squeal.

(she knows what it means, that he's here, and she isn't surprised, not really.)

Eventually, after tons of practice and struggling on both sides, they're able to manifest by the other's side during the day, as well. Not quite enough to breach the wall separating their universes, but enough to notice the other's presence. Enough to be seen, to be heard, to be _felt_.

Megamind goes to Cat more often than she comes to him, but they're together, and they're_ there_. They laugh, and they love, and they go through day after day until life feels worth living, until the old and familiar ache of being broken fades into a mere memory.

They marry, despite it all, because while they both _know _they will never separate, it's nice to have it official and on paper. And in their still-shared dreams they press close together, hands against hands, skin against skin, hearts beating as one.

(Megamind never dreams of black holes again, and when he dreams of space, he dreams of stars.)

Life is good, and long, and despite the distance separating them Cat has never been happier with anyone else. There's laughter and happiness and warmth, and home and safety and content.

And when all three of them one day, far down the line, pass quietly together, their souls mingle and twist and complete.

"Well," says the Guardian, his eyes warm and wise as ever as he looks down at them. "Was it worth it?"

And they and they and they look at each other, whole and complete and together, and know that nothing has really changed.

"Yes," they say, as one, and their forever is held in their hands.


End file.
